


Misty Reflections

by Eightpoundsofhair



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, Hauntings, Naming this thing was so hard, is that a tag???, theres ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 22:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21260672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eightpoundsofhair/pseuds/Eightpoundsofhair
Summary: Peridot’s mirror was haunted. It had always been a thing. For as long as she could remember the mirror that her mom simply would not let her be rid of had most certainly, definitely been haunted. After breaking the mirror in a fit of frustration one day, however, she disappeared and Peridot had almost forgotten about her. Until she began showing up in her real life a few months later.





	Misty Reflections

Peridot’s mirror was haunted.

It had always been a _thing_. For as long as she could remember the mirror that her mom simply would not let her be rid of had most certainly, definitely been haunted. It was almost funny in a way because Peridot didn’t quite believe in ghosts, didn’t think logically that they were real, but ever since she was a small child, still sucking her thumb and crying at every passing storm, she had occasionally be woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of screaming and banging and would be left paralyzed with fear as she awoke to a girl staring back at her through her mirror. Cold, dead eyes. Curling frown along plump lips. Furrowed black eyebrows. Dripping with water.

It had petrified her as a kid, still did now if she was being honest with herself, but Peridot had done everything she could to force away the fear. Ghosts weren’t real. All this was was a twisted, reoccurring nightmare. Even if she didn’t quite believe it. Especially when the nightmares never went away, instead became gradually more frequent over time. Especially because even though she had vowed to cover the dreaded thing with a sheet, each time she had woken up to _her_ late in the night the sheet had fallen to the ground by morning.

If she was the paranoid type she wouldn’t have been surprised. The mirror itself was an old thing and looked it. A heavy set oval with a spiraling frame that she had once thought to be real silver only to be proved paint as it began to crack and chip with its age, revealing a matte black underneath. The glass perpetually foggy, even when her mom snapped at her to clean it constantly. The only time it ever seemed new, that cracked paint gone, the glass new and shiny, was when the ghost was using it as a vessel. Staring at her through it with a sharp, crystal clear picture, the fake silver frame shining with a pronounced luster.

Peridot wanted desperately to get rid of it but if her and her mother had anything in common it was that they were stubborn and she had insisted that it stay simply because it was an antique that had belonged to Peridot’s grandmother once. Nothing Peridot said would dissuade her, not even when Peridot argued that they had no use in keeping it, not after the old woman it had once belonged to had disowned her own daughter for getting pregnant out of wedlock. But her mother had simply shook her head with a frown with a cold, “It’s should be worth a lot of money, at least”.

Peridot bit back the following comment that came rushing forward, knowing that it would be no used to argue any further. She had already lost. Instead she watched in the reflection of the foggy glass as her mother walked away.

So the mirror remained hanging like a curse on the far wall of Peridot’s room. She tried not to think about it much. Since her mother refused to let her be rid of it, refused to even let her move it out of her room, she had no other options. She avoided its gaze as best she could and continued to cover it with sheets that would undoubtedly fall to the floor by the next morning.

She was just being silly, she tried to reassure herself, like her mom had always told her. _Ghosts_ _weren’t_ _real_.

**

As senior year began, the early signs of fall and the nearing pressure of application deadlines hitting her full force, Peridot’s ghost became all the more tormenting. Perhaps it was just unfortunate timing. Perhaps this ghost really did suck as much as Peridot thought she did and was trying to torture her. Either way the constant recurrence of her was causing Peridot to run out of steam when she wanted it the most. Too tired from the lack of sleep to edit her application essays for a five hundredth time and instead stopping at the four hindered ninety nine point. Too tired to do much of anything but try her best to get into college.

She sent a daggered glare the mirror’s way after she had submitted her applications.

Luckily the dreaded mirror had had no real effect on her success. In only a few months of miserably anxious waiting she had gotten back a letter of acceptance from her dream school. In spite of that awful mirror and her horrible mother who wouldn’t let her get rid of it she hung the letter over top the foggy glass, a smirking expression on her face. Yet that morning, after having woken up late for school and sweaty due to the especially long awakening the ghost had given her, she saw that the piece of paper was ripped to shreds and laying on the floor below.

Peridot’s heart stopped at the sight of it, lip quivering and chest filling with dread.

She was stupid. Of course she shouldn’t have left something she cared so much about over top it. Of course she shouldn’t have been so petty over an inanimate object. Especially one that she well believed to be haunted. Yet she had been bitter and stupid and in a moment of vengeful lack of judgement she had caused herself to loose something she cared deeply about. Who cared that she message had already been sent to her as an email a month before? This was physical. It was proof. Proof that she was smart. Proof that she would be out of here.

She sat on the ground in front of the mirror, picking up a few of the larger pieces from the carpet. She couldn’t even make out three whole words on the page; couldn’t make out even her own name. Despite herself she started to cry, trying her hardest to pull some pieces together like a puzzle. It didn’t work.

In a fit of agitation she rose to her feet quickly, the self pitying mourning shifting into a bright anger. Her chest squeezed, her hands shook, her face flushed, her breathing came on heavy as she stepped back, looking at her tear streaked face in the muffled reflection of the mirror. The sight only made the blood boil in her veins a bit hotter.

With a frustrated shout she grabbed a nearby textbook that lay on her floor and threw it as hard as she could into that damned mirror. It flew into it with a heavy force and the crash that sounded as the book hit the glass was so loud and startling that Peridot jumped back in fear. Glass flew out from the frame, littering the floor of her room.

Peridot rubbed her eyes after the crash, whipping away the last of her tears, and took a heavy, shaky breath. Calming herself from her moment of hot, spontaneous anger.

The shards of broken glass mixed with the shredded pieces of paper on the ground.

Peridot frowned at the mess, a twang of worry and guilt sleeping on her chest. Maybe she shouldn’t have done that. If this thing was really haunted what would her breaking it do? Would the ghost be angry? Would she destroy more of Peridot’s things now that she had destroyed _her_ thing? And even if her ghost did nothing Peridot’s mother certainly wouldn’t be happy.

She took another heavy breath, forcing off her fear and vowing to clean the mess after she got home, after all she was already late for school. With one last tentative glance behind her she left her room, closing the door quietly so that her mother could not glance inside.

Hopefully with the mirror gone the ghost would be too, Peridot tried to reassure herself as she walked quickly to school.

**

Her mother _had_ been furious, as Peridot correctly guessed she would be. Yet ultimately Peridot hardly got into too much trouble. After all, it’s hard to ground someone who didn’t go out, hard to confiscate things from someone who liked to do little other than school, and her mother couldn’t even bring herself to make her skip robotics club for the week as it was the only real social interaction she got. So the empty shell of a mirror was removed from her room and Peridot got off scot free.

She pretended to feel guilt but in actuality she had never been more relieved. The nightmares had finally stopped.

**

Peridot had forgotten all about her ghost by the time she had moved into college.

By then it had been months since she had last shown up, months since Peridot had smashed the mirror and her mother finally let her be rid of it. And with the empty frame of it moved into the garage the dreams had stopped; the paranoid fear that _something_ bad was bound to happen slowly eased as slowly but surely she forgot about the mirror and her ghost entirely.

And with that unsettling intruder gone her senior year only begun to look further and further up. A new life was just around the corner. She’d be in a new state where no one knew her, only taking the classes she wanted, not having to wake up at six in the morning, and even luckier than that her one friend from robotics club was headed to the same school as her, was living in a dorm only a few blocks from her own. She was living on an emotional high, finally free from her mother and high school bullies, finally free from that scrawny, staring girl in her mirror.

She was happier than she had ever been. That is until, while on a walk with her robotics club friend, when all too quickly everything came crashing back down on her. Peridot stopped still in her tracks, coming to an abrupt halt at the edge of the sidewalk, her heart stopping in her chest as her eyes went wide.

It was _her_. The ghost from her mirror.

She was standing there across the street, in between the rows of bustling dorms with no sense of purpose. Standing still on the curb and staring out with no sign to move. Cold and stagnant, and staring. Staring with that same look she had always had. That same look that had traumatized Peridot for years. Cold. Accusatory. Glaring.

Peridot felt her heartbeat quicken from where it had stopped still in an instant, quickly becoming so fast that she felt light headed. A deep feeling of dread filling her chest, pulling and compressing and making it impossible to do anything but stare. It was _her_. There was no denying it.

“Peridot?” Her friend asked, his voice raised with concern as her followed her gaze across the street to the girl who stood out of place and still as a statue across the road from them.

Peridot felt her chest compress all the more, her head spinning; the gaze of the girl was somehow growing colder by the second, “Let’s go,” she grabbed his arm and pulled him back in the direction they had came.

She had never been so scared in her life

**

She was following her. Everywhere Peridot went she would see her lurking in the background, feel her somewhere behind her staring. In classes. In the library. At the cafe. _Everywhere_. She was always in the background. Always just around the corner. Peridot felt like she was being hunted. Deliberately tracked down and followed. She was being stalked and she had a feeling her stalker had bad intentions.

She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to tell someone. Wanted to tell her friend or even her mother or, quite frankly, campus police but she felt like she couldn’t. Not when she was certain that no one would believe her. So she found herself staying in her dorm, constantly tossing looks over her shoulder on the occasion that she left. She was horrified that her mirror ghost was sure to suddenly find her, catch up with her and do whatever it was she wanted to do. Whatever it was that had caused her to haunt her, and now follow her, for years.

Luckily she never did follow Peridot into her dorm, Peridot never even caught a glimpse of her standing outside, and those vivid nightmares that she couldn’t feel confident had ever _actually_ been nightmares stayed away. Peridot was at least relieved of that. If she was going to be haunted, was going to be hunted down by this obsessive ghost, in her real, waking life, at least she had the decency to let her sleep.

Yet even with that small grace, by the time two months into the semester had come, two months of hiding alone in her room, skipping out on club meetings and football games and concerts because she was scared that _she_ might follow, Peridot couldn’t take it anymore.

She was supposed to be free now. Happy. Making friends and enjoying herself. By now she should have gone to parties, should have gone on her first date, should have spent time with her old friend. Yet at each opportunity she had stayed in, prevented in fear of the girl who would show up a foot closer than the last time every time she let her guard down.

But Peridot was tired of hiding. Angry at the lack of progress she had made. Angry at the amount of worrying she had done. She wasn’t going to let it happen anymore. She was going to let this ghost know that she was done being afraid of her. She was done being haunted. With a swelling of unexpected motivation she rose to her feet one Wednesday afternoon after having sulked around for an hour for missing yet another robotics club meeting. Grabbing her keys and kicking on her sneakers she walked out of her dorm.

She was done.

**

Finding a ghost was a lot harder than being pursued by one, Peridot learned rather quickly that night.

It was cold out, Peridot frowned at the fact as she stomped down the streets of campus with her arms folded around herself, and it was only getting colder as the sun slowly began to set, the sky turning vivid oranges and pinks above her. She had been looking for over an hour at that point, had been shivering and freezing the whole time, and by then she was ready to give up, tired and cold and slowly losing motivation.

Yet as Peridot began heading home she found her unexpectedly, sitting alone on a stray bench just a few blocks from Peridot’s dorm, no backpack, no phone, no jacket, _nothing_. As Peridot caught sight of her, quickly filled with that same motivated anger as before, the ghost’s eyes shot up, catching Peridot’s instantly.

Those grey eyes narrowed so maliciously that Peridot almost lost her courage, frightened by the pronounced hate sent her way, somehow even angrier than usual. Instead she forced herself through a shaky breath, narrowing her own eyes and forcing herself to pull forward her own angered confidence. She was _done_ with being haunted and she was going to get this ghost to leave her alone. Even if it meant being a little scared.

“Who are you?” She shouted from across the large sidewalk, forcing herself to sound as intimidating as possible, even if she was shaking and too scared to even take a step forward.

The ghost stared back, eyebrows sinking a little lower.

“What do you want from me?” Peridot shouted again, voice cracking with a lifetime’s worth of frustration, a lifetime’s worth of fear, “What did I ever do to you?”

The girl stood. Peridot took an instinctive step back, the shaking in her limbs growing stronger.

“Who are _you_?” The ghost spoke back, voice biting and bitter as her stare.

Peridot could say nothing back; instead was so intimidated by her speaking that she turned and ran, on the verge of tears the whole time until she was slamming the door to her dorm shut, panting behind it and shaking.

**

Peridot was not supposed to have been woken up to screams that night. The nightmares were supposed to have stopped, the presence of _her_ in the real world preventing the nighttime hauntings, but perhaps in Peridot’s horrible mistake of confronting her, in that fit of lapsed judgement when she had walked straight up to her and confronted her, she had reversed the spell that kept her away. She couldn’t know for sure, although she wasn’t sure that knowing would help her much anyway. All the same, she was woken up to piercing screams when she shouldn’t have. Those same wails that had woken her for all of her life all the more ominous when she had grown unused to them. And as she blinked open her eyes, the wailing stopping as she sat up, Peridot knew for the first time since she was a child, that these were not nightmares.

_She_ stood across the room from Peridot, standing looming and intimidating at the door, sopping wet and dripping puddles onto the floor.

Peridot sat bolt upright in her bed, pushing herself back until she hit the wall, unable to tear her eyes away from where they locked with those cold, grey ones across the room. She was more scared than she ever had been before. No longer was her ghost trapped. No longer was she held back. No longer separated from Peridot by that clear barrier. No longer was Peridot confident that she was safe in her presence.

The ghost took a step forward, solidifying Peridot’s fears. The sound was heavy and loud; echoing across the room as Peridot’s heart, which had stopped still in fear, began to beat more rapidly than she thought it ever had before. She pushed herself further up against the wall, pinning her back to it as she lost control of her breathing, let out a whine from her throat.

The ghost paused before taking another step, but when she did it somehow echoed louder than her last one.

In just a few more steps she would reach her, the room so small that she could get to her in just a few small places. In just a few more steps Peridot would have nowhere to go and no way to protect herself. In just a few more steps she would be at the mercy of this malicious being who had refused to let her go, who had tormented her for the length of her life. The booming echo of her continued footsteps sent Peridot into tears.

“What do you want?” Peridot whimpered, hands shaking as she raised them to her chest, trying to protect herself in any way she could.

The ghost stopped at her words, glare intensifying, before she did something she had never done before. She smiled.

Genuine, honest. It reached her eyes and spread throughout her body. That limp, dead posture coming alive as her body lit up, enraptured by her first expression outside of that heavy glare.

Yet the sight of it, that genuine smile, only made the fear that was welling in Peridot’s chest intensify. She had never seen her like this before. What did it mean? She choked on another sob as she watched as the ghost in front of her began to laugh.

Peridot screamed when the ghost abruptly lunged towards her, reaching out as her face fell back into a glare so deep and heavy it warped her face as if she was made of clay. Peridot sobbed heavier, squeezing her eyes shut and growing hysterical. _She was going to die._

Yet the moment she was dreading never came and Peridot’s breathing gradually slowed and when she finally opened her eyes after what felt like an eternity she was gone. Disappeared entirely from her bedroom.

**

Peridot’s ghost had disappeared from her waking world.

As quick as she had shown up she left. No longer was she in every class. No longer would Peridot catch her in the back row next to a TA with a dead stare on her face; no pencils, no notebooks, no backpack. No longer was she lingering by the salad bar at the dining halls every day. No longer was she seemingly teleporting along the road behind her as she walked. Always there when Peridot looked, just a half block or so away and standing as still as a statue, always somehow making up the space that should have come between them by the time Peridot looked back again.

No longer was she around at all.

Yet with Peridot’s ghost gone from her real life the nightmares became worse than they had ever been before. Where in the past in the “dreams” she had done nothing but stare intently, gazing upon Peridot with malice and hatred. Yet now, seemingly angered by the confrontation and freed from the confines of her mirror, she was violent.

Every night she got a bit closer. Face warped with either and absurd grin or a look of intense hatred, getting all the more dramatic, all the more horrifying, each passing night. So large and overpowering were those grins on her face that it looked painful. Stretching every feature so tightly that she looked as if she might pop. And so evil was that look of hatred, eyes so fiery and hot in her cold stare that the sight itself could cause Peridot’s heartbeat to skip. And each night Peridot would cry as she took bounding steps forwards, sometimes slow and menacing as Peridot worked herself up to hysterics, sometimes coming towards her so fast that Peridot couldn’t even properly see her, found herself screaming in response. And every night she got a little bit closer, a little bit scarier, a little bit more vocal.

Peridot had never heard her talk before that day of confrontation. Yet with that interaction she had seemingly found her words. They came out unsteady at first, gasping and wavering and pitch, but with each passing night the tone became more clear. Her words became more descriptively cruel.

She threatened Peridot. Promised to rip out her eyes and beat her over the head and choke her and stab her and kill her in any number of unpleasant ways. Those words spoke with such a bite of intense malice, such violent hatred that Peridot hardly even took notice of how bizarre the words sounded coming from the decidedly feminine hum of her voice. The worse those curses came, the more violently her lengthy descriptions of what she would do to Peridot became, the less she cared about the pretty tone of the voice that bit her. All she could do was sob as she gripped at pillows and pushed herself against the wall, worrying with everything in her that _tonight_ might be the night she actually reached her.

Yet some days she wouldn’t speak at all. She didn’t even take any steps forwards. Her face didn’t shift into anything other than her old, frightening but familiar glare, decidedly calm in comparison to the more recent incarnations. Instead on those nights Peridot got a break of the paralyzing fear as instead she merely stood at the back of Peridot’s room and looked at her. Reminiscent to the past in the way she did nothing but watch as Peridot, relieved at the small break of mental torment and exhausted from the total lack of sleep she was experiencing as of late, would fall asleep under her watchful gaze. Too tired to keep herself conscious after countless nights of sleepless, unbridled fear.

**

Peridot woke up to the sound of screams. It was no longer at all unusual; it was a sound she had woken to for years and now a nightly occurrence. Although the familiarity of it hardly made the noise any less daunting.

The scream was wailing, moaning and echoey when Peridot first started to hear it, pulled softly from her slumber to instead lie, on the brink of falling back asleep, listening. The sound caused her heart to sink, limbs quickly stiffening with adrenaline. Yet she forced her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see her yet. Didn’t want to have to face her. Didn’t want to have to watch as she got even closer to her than she did the night before.

Instead she forced herself to lie as still as she could, pretend with everything in her to still be asleep, the wailing call of her ghost’s scream gradually becoming more desperate with time. Higher in pitch, louder in volume. It was a disconcerting sound, one Peridot had hardly ever heard before as usually her soft screams, low and eerie, woke her so suddenly she would sit straight up and with her abrupt awakening the screams would stop altogether. Yet now, as she tried her best to ignore them, they grew more frantic than she had ever heard before. Shifting from a soft call to a desperate shout, a scream that sounded all too real. The sound of someone dying.

Peridot’s limbs began to shake. Horrified at the sound that was so loud and consuming and so hauntingly _real_ that she could no longer keep her eyes shut and ignore her. In a gasp of breath she opened her eyes, sitting up straight. The second she did the sound was gone and there she was. Standing across the room, her face pulled down into her characteristic frown.

She looked decidedly dead; her skin was muted in tone and vaguely grey. It was not uncommon for her to look that way, when she was confined to her mirror she looked that way more often than she did not, yet this time there was something more odd to her than her muted colors, the lack of life in her skin, no pink or brown undertones. This time she was glowing.

A faint, almost imperceivable, blueish glow emulated from her chest. Just enough so that Peridot could see her in better detail than usual. Just enough so that the cold grey of her skin was highlighted with a faint blue-y tone. It was almost pretty in a way, the way the light pulsed like a heartbeat, shining off of her skin and spinning off of her curls in sparkling hues of color. But Peridot could hardly acknowledge its shine because this was _new_ and that scared her.

She hardly had time to dwell on it however, mere moments after Peridot had opened her eyes she began taking staggering steps forward. Lunging and awkward, clumsy and heavy her feet landed on the floor of Peridot’s room with a crash. Peridot gasped at the sound, pulling the blankets in closer to herself and sitting up a little taller. Her chest squeezed at her, compressing her breathing and in turn causing her to let out squeaky little whines of breath, fast paced and childish.

Usually it would take her a long while to move. Usually she would spend so long merely staring that Peridot would start to doze, the fear in her chest floating away in her exhaustion. Usually it was only then, when Peridot’s eyes began to fall heavy when she started to move when she started to talking. Usually it was then when she threatened to maim and torture and harm, still taking those clumsy, heavy steps toward her. Usually things were different entirely. Usually she didn’t glow. Usually she wasn’t so grey. Usually things didn’t go like this and once again Peridot’s fear doubled, the unfamiliarity of the night causing her heartbeat to quicken, her breathing to hasten. Her fear only grew all the more when her steps began to even out, the shaky uncertainty fading away in a few solitary steps for the first time.

By the time she started talking Peridot was already on the brink of panicked tears. Everything was so different than what was routine that she felt certain that tonight she would reach her. Tonight she would not disappear before she could grab her. Tonight would be the night when all of those horrifying words that had been spoken to her would become true.

“You,” she spat, the word snarled through her chest. Another step echoed it, loud and booming, yet decidedly steady and sure of itself. Peridot whined at the sound, wanting to shut her eyes and hide herself in her blankets but too fearful to take her eyes off of her.

When she spoke again her voice was laced with violent fury, eyes filled with fiery rage, “You hurt me”.

Peridot stilled at her words, finding some of that horror alleviating, replaces with confusion.

“What?” Peridot asked back, voice high and laced with confusion, even if the pitch wavered with remaining fear. She raised herself a little higher on her bed, “How-“

Yet before Peridot could utter another sound the ghost screamed. Piercing and loud and _real_ just like before. The sound, so startling and loud was what finally broke Peridot down. She started to cry as the ghost’s scream grew higher in pitch.

“Shut up!” she shouted, stomping her feet repeatedly beneath her, the sound echoing and overwhelmingly loud in the tiny room, “You trapped me” the ghost spat, voice dripping with unadulterated hatred.

Peridot whimpered but forced herself to open her eyes, gasping for breath and hugging her blankets closer to her chest. She was at the foot of her bed. Towering above Peridot just a few steps away, murder in her eyes.

The ghost took another step. She was within arms length. She could reach out and touch her. Peridot was shaking profusely. Breathing so violently fast she felt as if she might pass out.

“You killed me,”

The ghost leaned down to her, bringing their faces close together and Peridot felt as if she might pass out. Might throw up. Might die of fear before she could kill her. Instead all she did was cry harder, chest compressing so tightly in fear that it physically hurt, hands shaking so violently she couldn’t control them.

“Please,” she whined, despite herself, desperate and horribly fearful; closing her eyes even where she willed them to stay open. She was going to die.

The moment she was waiting for did not come, however. She was not strangled. Her neck wasn’t snapped. She was not stabbed or torn apart or anything else. Instead a finger reached out to her face, and while her body jerked dramatically at the touch, a heavier sob coming on at the feeling, all it did was wipe her tears. Peridot opened her eyes.

The sight that greeted her was nothing that she was expecting. The ghost was leaning over her, finger lightly tracing the curve of her cheeks, the glare on her face lessened. The fire in her eyes less violent.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice soothing and pretty as she drew a soft circle upon her cheek before pulling it away entirely. As it lifted Peridot found her face completely dry.

“What?” She whispered back, voice wavering where her chest heaved heavy breaths, body still shaking dramatically, yet that intense dread had begun to lift.

“You freed me,” the ghost whispered, pulling herself slowly into Peridot’s bed and in turn atop her, “I hadn’t realized,”

She settled herself in Peridot’s lap, straddling her waist and wiggling herself down, and even where Peridot was still frightened, as her ghost gently settled atop of her chest her shaking ceased. Her heart beat slowed. It was nothing like that horrifying attack she had been expecting based off of the past month. Nothing like those horrific explanations of all the brutal ways she would be murdered and tortured by her, told to her with such angered sincerity.

Instead, with a relaxation of her ghost’s face, a sudden and unexpected release of her ever present glare, she slowly brought a hand up and began to trace the length of Peridot’s chin. And the soft way she touched her with nothing more than an outstretched finger, the touch so faint and damp that she felt like mist, mixed with the feather light weight of her body, noticeable only because Peridot was so focused on it, made Peridot’s worries start to alleviate entirely.

Her face said it all; the soft, gentle look on her face was nothing other than inquisitive. Curious. It was the least expressive Peridot had ever seen her. Nothing like that near ever present glare she had seen all her life, pulled down so heavily, her eyes filled with a vivid fire. Brows pulled down so heavily they looked almost cartoony, corners of her lips trailing down to her chin. Nothing like that newly found second expression, a smile so large and face altering that it felt inhuman, lips pulled so wide she could see her gums, eyes so bulging they looked as if they might fall out. This wasn’t an extreme like she was used to. Nothing at all like those deforming looks, so overpowering that they could instantly fill Peridot with dread and paranoid panic. This look was all too different.

It wasn’t the face of a malicious mirror ghost. It was human.

It was almost hard to believe this was the same face, yet as close as she was there was no mistaking it. The features were all the same, even if they were unharmed by the presence of something unsettling atop them. That expression, the soft look on her face that was so startlingly new, so different than anything Peridot had seen on her, made her come to a quick and jarring observation. One that she had had before, but now, in wake of this closeness, this new tone of her presence, felt like it held more weight.

She was pretty.

Peridot had always thought she was, in a way. Even under that biting, accusatory, angry look. There was always a hint of beauty there, even if it was warped by such a dangerous glare. She had noticed it a multitude of times before. When she was eleven, horrified and frightened of her still but just growing used to her enough to start to notice her features. Again when she was fourteen, had been staring at her for hours in the middle of the night and was tired and beyond delirious, not to mention in the middle of a sexuality crisis. She had always shoved it off though, uncomfortable with the feeling of it and it was never very hard to ignore, not when the presence of her was never anything other than frightening.

But now she was so close. Sitting atop her with a soft, gentle look on her face. Leaning in slightly as she traced a careful, misty finger across her chin. It was impossible to ignore when she was so close she would have been able to feel her breath on her face had she breathed at all.

Her eyebrows were no longer pulled down into a biting look of anger. Instead they were soft and Peridot could see every little hair, brushed neatly up into a bold, black shape. Defined and heavy but soft in the way they were currently used, no longer a dagger but something kind. Pulled only slightly up as she looked onto Peridot in curiosity. Her nose, long and slopping downwards in a pretty manner, drew Peridot’s eyes down and she followed its path down to her lips, which were just slightly ajar as she looked down upon Peridot. Soft and full and no longer pulled into a heavy frown. They looked gorgeous upon her face, plump and regal. And all around her skin was so clear, so smooth it mirrored porcelain, interrupted only by the occasional freckle, so softly blending into the color of her face that they would have been imperceivable from any further a distance. Her hair framed it all brilliantly, pulled down slightly with the weight of the water that constantly hung to her, dripping down into Peridpt’s lap and leaving her slightly cold, but the pretty little ringlets still curled despite all odds. Soft spirals of black, sweet and gentle and wonderfully shaped.

And her eyes! They had always been the part of her that held life. That passionate anger had lit up her eyes so fiercely once that it was impossible to ignore; it had encapsulated her being. But now that air of anger was gone, and with that imposing look, the weaponized use of those lifefull eyes in such a hateful glance dispersed, all Peridot could focus on was their beauty. They were soft now, that stubborn sense of _life_ still there, detectable in the way they followed the track of her finger so intently.

And for the first time a blue undertone of her otherwise grey eyes could properly be seen, revealed in contrast to the grey that seemed to engulf her. They were deep and dark like a storm cloud or a rough sea, the color dark and imposing, yet with that new hint of pretty blue, and when they looked at her like that, so sweetly and innocently, it felt anything but.

She was beautiful.

Even if all of her was a little too grey to be alive.

“Who are you?” the ghost hummed, eventually. Her voice soothing and soft in the jingly, gorgeous way it rang in Peridot’s ears, “I thought I had known,”

Peridot wasn’t sure how to respond; a fuzzy feeling capturing her brain, leaving it fogged over and cloudy as if she was floating in mist, ultimately leaving her unresponsive. Instead she merely looked up, leaning into the touch of her ghost as she pulled a second hand up to grab her on either side of her chin. She shook her head gently, almost imperceivable in how slight the movement was although she was sure the ghost would able to tell with her hands on her head.

“Come with me,” the ghost offered after a moment, her voice gentle and soothing, hardly louder than a whisper. She pulled her hands away from Peridot’s face, a soft, sweet, human smile falling atop her lips.

Peridot, entranced and captivated by the sight of her, could do nothing but nod.

She wasn’t sure quite what was happening but soon she was being pulled by her hand out of her room and down the hall. Out of her building entirely and into the night air which should have been positively freezing but instead was just vaguely chilly. Not bitter and biting but nice and almost pleasant. Peridot found herself smiling dumbly as she was pulled forward, lead by her ghost with long strides, so smooth and effortless that it looked as if she was floating. Peridot herself felt as if she was floating as she was pulled quickly down the streets, caught up in the soft blue glow of this girl ahead of her. Her head just as foggy as the weather outside and the misty hand on her own.

Eventually she was pulled off campus, lead quickly to a forest Peridot was unfamiliar with, the trees around lush and pretty, colorful as a sunset. The ghost walked effortlessly across the sparsely trodden ground, littered with so many sticks and leaves it should have taken great effort to get through and Peridot, encapsulated and following ever footstep found herself too walking with ease.

Not that she knew it, she was so focused on the girl in front of her, mystified by her mostly unnoticed beauty, hypnotized by the soft, pulsing blue glow that emulated around her, that she was aware of very little other than the misty touch on her hand. She caught the world around her in brief glances, each sight of the wonderful forest around her a mere distraction from the enchanting woman in front of her.

She only noticed she was pulled into a clearing when the girl in front of her stopped abruptly. Gripping at Peridot’s hand a little stronger, her touch feeling a little more human as she squeezed her. The ghost hummed as Peridot looked out in front of them where the trees parting to reveal a lake whose surface was so still the sky above it was reflected perfectly. The ghost lead her to the edge.

“This is where I died,” the ghost spoke gently at her side, and Peridot, hardly listening to the words themselves, could not help but smile at her tone. Like the gentle ringing of bells her voice it held a sense of whimsy and Peridot smiled along, simply listening and feeling as the ghost walked behind her, the misty touch of her body suddenly encapsulating her.

“And it is where you will die too,”

And just as quick as her mind had fogged over, to become hypnotized so foolishly by the ghost who had promised constantly to kill her, she awoke from her trance. She tried to jump away, tired to move at all as her brain caught up with the situation, realized what a fatal flaw she had just made, but her realization came too late. She was pulled into the water.

The water was so freezing cold that she instinctively took a gasping breath as she hit it only to choke on the water that surrounded her. The feeling of it burned heavily, made her feel the need to gasp for air even more but she forced herself to ignore the sensation, trying her best to get out of the ghost’s impossibly tight grasp while she still could.

She struggled with everything in her, kicked at the ghost and tried to lunge out of her grip so she could swim to the surface that was quickly falling out of her sight. But it was impossible to get away from her. Impossible to kick her away when she had no physical body to kick. Impossible to lunge away when her touch was all over her. Impossible to swim as with another, uncontrollable gasp for air that was not there her lungs continued to fill with water.

She wanted to cry, felt so foolish and so stupid and so, so afraid. She wanted her mother. Wanted her friends. Wanted anything but to be here, her chest hurting so bad as struggled to keep herself alive.

Her head was growing hazy. Limbs growing weak. Vision beginning to fade. She gave up, vision swirling as her stomach lurched with dread. _She was going to die._

Yet as she stopped fighting the ghost faded away. Her touch releasing Peridot from its impossibly tight grip to leave her free floating in the cold water.

Peridot looked up above her, the surface was far but she used her newly found freedom to use all of her remaining strength to get herself there. She _had_ to pull herself upwards. Had to pull herself _out_.

The surface of the lake above was so clear she could see the sky through it as she got closer to it. She could see the stars twinkling on the surface, could see the moon scattering light through the glassy water. A reflection of the world above.

**Author's Note:**

> first I just wanna apologize if this ain’t up to my usual standard. I got sooo sick two days ago (and am still too sick to properly celebrate :( ) and still had to do the final edit for over half of this and it was really hard to do. But hey! I still think it came out good  
Anyways the end to this may seem somewhat similar to the end of local legend and if it does I also apologize. I ADORED local legend with all parts of my soul and while I enjoyed this fic too all I wanted to be doing was writing local legend again and so their endings echo each other a bit. But hey! If you haven’t read local legend before go do so!! It’s like this fic but better and wayyy gayer.  
But anyway thank you for reading this one! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE leave me a comment. And have an amazing (and safe!) Halloween!!!


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